1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications. More particularly, the present invention relates to base stations, mobile telephone switching offices, mobile stations, and other wireless network systems or devices pertaining to a network based locator feature.
2. Background and Material Information
The use of wireless or mobile communication devices has increased greatly in recent years. Mobile and cellular telephones have enabled mobile station users to roam over large geographic areas while maintaining immediate access to telephony services. Mobile stations include portable units, units installed in vehicles and fixed subscriber stations. Cellular communication systems (wireless carriers) typically provide service to a geographic market area by dividing the area into many smaller areas or cells. Each cell is serviced by a radio transceiver (i.e., a transmitter-receiver base station or cell site). The cell sites or base stations may be connected to Mobile Telephone Switching Offices (MTSOs) or Mobile Switching Centers (MSCs) through landlines or other communication links, and the MTSOs may, in turn, be connected via landlines to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).
FIG. 1 illustrates the basic components of a conventional cellular network. As shown in FIG. 1, a mobile station 38 may place or receive calls by communicating with a cell site 30 or a cell site 40, depending upon the geographic location of the mobile station and the cell coverage area that is provided by each cell site (i.e., cell coverage area 35 of cell site 30 or cell coverage area 45 of cell site 40). For purposes of illustration, mobile station 38 is depicted in FIG. 1 as being able to communicate with either cell site 30 or cell site 40, even though the mobile station is not illustrated as being located within cell coverage area 35 or cell coverage area 45. Under normal operating conditions, the extent to which mobile station 38 will be able to communicate with cell site 30 or cell site 40 will depend on the geographic location of the mobile station and the size of the cell coverage area of each cell site. Further, although only two cell sites are depicted in FIG. 1, the entire cellular network may include, for example, more than two cell sites. In addition, more than one cell site may be connected to each MTSO 24, 28.
Mobile phones and other wireless communication devices have, in recent years, become smaller and smaller. This decreased size has numerous obvious advantages. However, the smaller size makes the mobile station easier to lose or misplace. Irrespective of size, once an owner has misplaced his mobile station he wants it back. In the past, a mobile phone or other wireless communication device owner would use another phone to call his lost or misplaced device. This would and still works for limited scenarios but is far from perfect. For example, if the mobile station has been set to quiet or silent mode or the mobile station 68 is out of audio range of the owner, then the ringing will be difficult or impossible to hear and the mobile station 68 will thus be hard to find. With the advent of voice mail, the user will also have a limited time in which to hear the call before the mobile station or mobile phone service transfers the call into voice mail. The present invention overcomes these limitations.
3. Acronyms
The written description provided herein contains acronyms which refer to various telecommunications services, components and techniques, as well as features relating to the present invention. Although some of these acronyms are known, use of these acronyms is not strictly standardized in the art. For purposes of the written description herein, the acronyms are defined as follows:    Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN)    Automatic Number Identification (ANI)    Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)    Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS)    Customer Service Center (CSC)    Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM)    Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)    Global System for Mobile communications (GSM)    Home Location Register (HLR)    Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (IDEN)    Interactive Voice Response (IVR)    Mobile Identification Number (MIN)    Mobile Telephone Switching Offices (MTSOs)    Mobile Switching Centers (MSCs)    Over the Air Activation (OAA)    Over the Air Programming (OAP)    Over the Air Activation Function (OTAF)    Personal Access Communications System (PACS)    Personal Communications Services (PCS)    Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)    Personal Identification Number (PIN)    Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)    Random Access Memory (RAM)    Service Control Point (SCP)    Short Message Peer-to-Peer (SMPP) protocol    Short Message Service (SMS)    Short Message Service Center (SMSC)    Service Switching Point (SSP)    Terminating Attempt Trigger (TAT)    Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)    Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)    Universal Resource Locator (URL)